Events – Page 3 – MathCityMap

Catania between myths, legends, polygons and polyhedra: MathCityMap wins Catania over!

November 15th, 2018 a teacher training course named “MathCityMap: using and creating tasks around the city” started. It is promoted by the Accademia dei Lincei and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania. As a first activity, a group of school teachers tested the first trail created in Catania. The teachers got […]

November 15th, 2018 a teacher training course named “MathCityMap: using and creating tasks around the city” started. It is promoted by the Accademia dei Lincei and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania. As a first activity, a group of school teachers tested the first trail created in Catania. The teachers got in touch with the potential of the MathCityMap app and lived the city of Catania with different eyes! In fact, they met some mathematical activities, located between Villa Bellini and Piazza Duomo. Here is what they said at the end of the meeting: “it was fun, engaging and interesting. It could be an excellent dissemination tool, and from an educational point of view it is an excellent opportunity to involve students by letting them doing mathematics in an interdisciplinary, contextualised, real and concrete educational context”

Impressions

Authors: Angelo Ariosto, Daniela Ferrarello, Eugenia Taranto.

MoMaTrE workshops in Nitra

MoMaTrE (Mobile Math Trails in Europe) – this is the name of the european project to spread technology supported math trails in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and Slovakia. From 6th until 9th of November Moritz Baumann and Iwan Gurjanow (both Goethe University) visited Nitra (Slovakia) and carried out several workshops in collaboration with Sona Ceretkova (Professor for mathematics education […]

MoMaTrE (Mobile Math Trails in Europe) – this is the name of the european project to spread technology supported math trails in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and Slovakia. From 6th until 9th of November Moritz Baumann and Iwan Gurjanow (both Goethe University) visited Nitra (Slovakia) and carried out several workshops in collaboration with Sona Ceretkova (Professor for mathematics education at the university Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre) with the focus on outdoor modelling with MathCityMap.

Workshops

The workshop preparations took place on Tuesday afternoon. In this context we created a math trail that contains ten tasks, that the participants of the workshops should complete. Amongst other things, the current task of the week is part of the trail. The area around the university as well as the beautiful old town of Nitra have been inspected and suitable objects were photographed and measured.

On Wednesday and Thursday morning two sessions of 90 minutes each for teacher students took place. The future teachers could gain insights into the theory of education outside the classroom, the theory of math trails as well as mathematical modelling. However, the participants had the most fun with the practical part in which they had to complete the math trail (see series of pictures). During the math trail, the new digital classroom feature could be successfully tested. The second session focused on creating a math trail with the use of MathCityMap. The participants showed great interest in the project and participated actively in the work phases. For us, the practical phases of a workshop are very important. They allow future teachers to get in touch with the new technology and to reduce fears to use digital media in classroom. Hopefully, this contributes to an increased use of digital media and in this context of MathCityMap in the real mathematics classroom in the future.

On Wednesday afternoon, teacher students of the primary school listened to a lecture about math trails and modelling. The lecture was held in English and translated simultaniously into Slovakish (see impressions in the lecture hall). It was the first time that students were able to attend an international lecture and certainly aroused interest, for example in participating in the Intensive Program for Mathtrails at the Goethe University in March 2019. The exchange between students and lecturers from the participating European countries is one of the goals of the Erasmus + project.

The travel was concluded by a 3 hours workshop for in-service teachers of mathematics in Nitra. The session was structured in a similiar way as described above and offered the participants to get in touch with new possibilities of integrating smartphones in their mathematics classroom.

Conclusion

Overall, we consider the meeting in Nitra a great success for the European project. The events was tightly clocked and could all be successfully completed. The cooperation and the exchange with the Slovak lecturers was furthermore informative for us. We were able to enjoy a great hospitality, get to know the beautiful city in the short spare time in an authentic way and learn about the Slovak education system. The next MoMaTrE project meeting will take place in Nitra too and we look forward to it!

Impressions

The following pictures show impressions of the city and our workshops.

MCM at MEDA conference in Copenhagen

With our conference report, we want to give an insight in our activities in Denmark’s beautiful capital city Copenhagen during the last week. From 5th till 7th September 2018, the conference „Mathematical Education in the Digital Age“ took place. It is a part of the European Researchers of Mathematical Education, the most popular international professional […]

With our conference report, we want to give an insight in our activities in Denmark’s beautiful capital city Copenhagen during the last week.

From 5th till 7th September 2018, the conference „Mathematical Education in the Digital Age“ took place. It is a part of the European Researchers of Mathematical Education, the most popular international professional association of mathematics education. More than 90 researchers from the field of digital education met during this event. Also the team around Prof. Dr. Matthias Ludwig was part in order to present the mobile application „MathCityMap“. MathCityMap was developed at Goethe University and is a system to create and run math trails. During the stay, a math trail in Copenhagen’s city center was created as a “present” for the city. Simone Jablonski and Joerg Zender, two research assistants and PhD students presented the review system of MathCityMap and were actively involved in the working groups of the conference. Here, important contacts were established, e.g. with the partner University of Pennsilvania (Philadelphia, USA). The contribution is included in the proceedings of MEDA. A special success of the presentation was the mentioning of the project in the final closing ceremony.

Copyrights: MATH Copenhagen University

MathCityMap at New Horizons in Teaching Science Workshop in Italy

On 18 June 2018, the “New Horizons in Teaching Science” workshop was held in Messina, Sicily. On this occasion, Eugenia Taranto spoke about the MathCityMap project and the collaboration with the Math MOOC UniTo (Massive Open Online Course University Turin) project. Many different tasks, which were prepared by Sicilian teachers within the MOOC “Relations and […]

On 18 June 2018, the “New Horizons in Teaching Science” workshop was held in Messina, Sicily.

On this occasion, Eugenia Taranto spoke about the MathCityMap project and the collaboration with the Math MOOC UniTo (Massive Open Online Course University Turin) project.

Many different tasks, which were prepared by Sicilian teachers within the MOOC “Relations and Functions”, were shown.

A lot of interest was shown and we hope that the number of Sicilian and Italian tasks will continue to increase!

It’s time to go outside!

On 24.05.2018, Martin Lipinski and Simone Jablonski presented the MathCityMap system und project during a teacher training at Campus Westend at Goethe University in Frankfurt. The event’s title “It’s time to go outside” was taken literally, so that the participants were able to test “outdoor mathematics” with help of the app. The trail showed not […]

On 24.05.2018, Martin Lipinski and Simone Jablonski presented the MathCityMap system und project during a teacher training at Campus Westend at Goethe University in Frankfurt. The event’s title “It’s time to go outside” was taken literally, so that the participants were able to test “outdoor mathematics” with help of the app.

The trail showed not only the different mathematic opportunities with MathCityMap, but also led through interesting objects on the campus, such as the Body of Knowledge or Adorno’s memorial.

The tasks included combinatorics, cryptographic and geometric questions, as well as GPS tasks. For example, it was asked to find the point which has the same distance to each of the marked points. On the paper, it is quite easy to construate the circumcenter of the triangle, but in reality, it is a special challenge.

The feedback made clear: The participants had a lot of fun while solving the tasks and own ideas how to use MCM with their students. We are looking forward to first reports!

Made in Taiwan

MathCityMap was part of the East Asian Conference On Mathematics Education 8 (EARCOME8) which took place in Taipeh, Taiwan. On Wednesday afternoon, about 30 participants were part of a “Special Sharing Group”, in which interested mathematics educators could make first experiences with MCM. After a typical Asian restraint in the beginning and the first cooperative […]

MathCityMap was part of the East Asian Conference On Mathematics Education 8 (EARCOME8) which took place in Taipeh, Taiwan.

On Wednesday afternoon, about 30 participants were part of a “Special Sharing Group”, in which interested mathematics educators could make first experiences with MCM. After a typical Asian restraint in the beginning and the first cooperative solved tasks, the participants were fascinated and measured, counted and calculated diligently.

You can find the trail here.

As part of the conference, there were two further presentations given by Hanna Gärtner and Joerg Zender from Goethe University, both very successful. Joerg Zender presented the findings on the two annual surveys among MCM users.

BILD rejoices in MathCityMap

Also in the regional edition of BILD Zeitung Stuttgart, MathCityMap and the opening of the MATHE.ENTDECKER trails around Stuttgart’s stock exchange were mentioned. In the category “What we rejoice in” it said: This makes learning fun. From now on, four new “Mathe.Entdecker Trails” exist around Stuttgart’s stock exchange. In the app MathCityMap, objects and places […]

Also in the regional edition of BILD Zeitung Stuttgart, MathCityMap and the opening of the MATHE.ENTDECKER trails around Stuttgart’s stock exchange were mentioned. In the category “What we rejoice in” it said:

This makes learning fun. From now on, four new “Mathe.Entdecker Trails” exist around Stuttgart’s stock exchange. In the app MathCityMap, objects and places become vivid math tasks.

We can only agree with this statement!

MCM meets Girls’ Day

On 26.04.2018 the annual Girls’ Day took place. The science faculties of Goethe University participated as well and therefore, 40 students who are interested in maths were able to get to know and test MathCityMap at the Campus Riedberg. After a short introduction given by Nazanin Roushanaei and Simone Jablonski, the girls at ages 12 […]

On 26.04.2018 the annual Girls’ Day took place. The science faculties of Goethe University participated as well and therefore, 40 students who are interested in maths were able to get to know and test MathCityMap at the Campus Riedberg.

After a short introduction given by Nazanin Roushanaei and Simone Jablonski, the girls at ages 12 till 16 came together in small groups and started a mathematical “paper chase”. With sunny weather they solved tasks on slope, height of buildings and bodies. The girls had a lot of fun and motivation, so that one group was actually able to solve all tasks of a trail in the period of one hour.

During a final phase, the girls gave their feedback. A first impression already showed: thumbs up for the MathCityMap app. We thank all the participants and are already looking forward to the next Girls’ Day.

You can find the trails here:

Grade 5/6/7

Grade 8/9/10

Article on MathCityMap in Stuttgart’s Newpaper

Already in the last week, we reported on the opening of the MATHE.ENTDECKER trails around Stuttgart’s stock exchange. We are happy that the event was also reported in the Stuttgarter Zeitung at the 20.04.2018 and would like to share this article with you: High school students on the math path School students use a smartphone […]

Already in the last week, we reported on the opening of the MATHE.ENTDECKER trails around Stuttgart’s stock exchange. We are happy that the event was also reported in the Stuttgarter Zeitung at the 20.04.2018 and would like to share this article with you:

High school students on the math path

School students use a smartphone and corresponding app to solve practical tasks. Uli Meyer

Many people are wrong being confronted with the question of how big a person would be with a head the size of the sculpture of the thinker. Five meters? Or six? 24 students of Johann Philipp Palm School cannot rely on their feeling or a vague estimate. They have to calculate an exact result. The 11th graders of the Schorndorfer Wirtschaftsgymnasium start with measuring tape and calculator and begin their mathematical calculations. Incidentally, the human would be just over ten meters tall, which the students calculate with help of the app. Managing Director of Stuttgart’s stock exchange, Oliver Hans, and Matthias Ludwig and Simone Jablonski from the Goethe University Frankfurt watch the happenings, because the aspiring high school students are the first to complete the so-called math discovery trail. Around the stock exchange, Ludwig and Jablonski and their staff of the Institute for Didactics of Mathematics and Computer Science have created four such trails. They vary in difficulty and challenge different ages, like the steel wheel and 14 other tricky tasks. “The Math Trail idea is already old and was developed in 1984 in Australia. Our new approach is that we combine it with an app for smartphones, “says Ludwig about the new offer for schools, but also for the very private, individual use.

Together with Stiftung Rechnen, where Stuttgart’s stock exchange is a founding member, Ludwig’s institute has developed the MathCityMap platform. This website is translated in eleven languages, because it has become an international project with partners in several countries. “Worldwide, we have 600 trails with around 3000 individual tasks in the system,” says Ludwig. One encounters it “through creativity and through the world with eyes open”. A circumstance that is also important to Oliver Hans: “Mathematics surrounds us permanently in our daily lives.” Stiftung Rechen would like to interest people in mathematics, to reduce fear of contact and to convey joy in dealing with numbers. “Arithmetic is a cultural technique as well as reading”, Hans and Ludwig agree. Not all students were enthusiastic when they completed Stuttgart’s first math discovery trail. But for many, this practical application of mathematical tasks seems more interesting than a math lesson. Their teacher, Thomas Blum, watches his students with a smile on their faces as they study the steel wheel: “They must work out principles as to how they can come to a solution.” The learning effect is as great as the fun.

MathCityMap can be downloaded for free in App Stores.

MCM in Munich

As part of the 109. MNU Bundeskongress, we were able to use and present MCM in the Bavarian capital city. Iwan Gurjanow and Simone Jablonski presented the MathCityMap idea in a workshop, which asked the teachers to test and create MCM tasks. The trail around TU Munich-Garching can be found here. In Munich’s city center […]

As part of the 109. MNU Bundeskongress, we were able to use and present MCM in the Bavarian capital city.

Iwan Gurjanow and Simone Jablonski presented the MathCityMap idea in a workshop, which asked the teachers to test and create MCM tasks. The trail around TU Munich-Garching can be found here.

In Munich’s city center numerous tasks could be created as well. Through a wide range of historical buildings and interesting objects, we can create a trail that involves a variety of tasks. It will be available in our portal soon.

Special thanks to the organisators and the participants for their active cooperation and constructive talks. We are sure that the MCM team will come back to Munich!